Happy new year!

[Sahand Sahebdivani]

Happy New Year everyone!

We made it! Many of you celebrated the joyous entry into the new year partying with us, some of you we share this wish from afar, but may it be a year of kindness, inspiration, peace and togetherness!  May it cast out the demons of last year, inner and outer, small and big. And may it be filled with even more stories, music and laughter. The last bit we can help with obviously!

First off, I want to share this Instagram post I saw today. A dance video of Matt McCreary, in which he enters an absurd dialogue with his environment. Please watch it with the sound on, for the full effect. I also want to share a poem with you, but for that you have to read the rest of the mail first.

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Speaking of Insta, did you know the Mezrab Storytelling School has an insta page? Please follow us if you haven't done so yet, we will start to update it this year with lovely story related posts!

Storytelling is also the first Mez event of 2026, when Danni hosts this Friday. After that we have:

- Our first Mez Comedy Night this Saturday with a stellar line up! 

- Then the week after on Tuesday (Jan 6) we do the first Mythos night of the year, all folk tales, myths and legends. Free night!

- Our very first Turkish 80ies/90ies synth pop night with Duygu Alkan is on Thursday Jan 8

- Then on Friday Jan 9 we have a Storylab night in the Other Mezrab (de Wittenstraat 27). On this night six tellers tell stories after working the whole day with me on their material! Everyone is welcome to come and listen.

- Saturday Jan 10 is the first Bohemian Balkan Night. Just click here to listen to great music and tix. 

- Sunday Jan 11 is the fist Mezjam of the year. For this night you don't need tickets. Just come to listen or bring an instrument to play. 

In the above list I mentioned the Storylab as a one day workshop for those who want to dive deeper into storytelling. It's one of the many workshops we are offering with the school this year, from a three day introduction course to a six month professional course. For a full list go to the Mezrab Storytelling School site.

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Ok, now that we have the Mez business out of the way, have a look at one of the finest poems written on the return of the year. Here's Octavio Paz's January First. He wrote it 51 years ago to the day:

The year’s doors open
like those of language
toward the unknown.
Last night you told me:

Tomorow
we shall have to think up signs,
sketch a landscape, fabricate a plan
on the double page
of day and paper.
Tomorrow, we shall have to invent,
once more,
the reality of this world.

I opened my eyes late
For a second of a second
I felt what the Aztec felt,
on the crest of the promontory,
lying in wait
for time’s uncertain return
through cracks in the horizon.

But no, the year had returned.
It filled all the room
and my look almost touched it.
Time, with no help from us,
had placed
in exactly the same order as yesterday
houses in the empty street,
snow on the houses,
silence on the snow.

You were beside me,
still asleep.
The day had invented you
but you hadn’t yet accepted
being invented by the day.
Nor possibly my being invented, either.
You were in another day.

You were beside me
and I saw you, like the snow,
asleep among the appearances.
Time, with no help from us,
invents houses, streets, trees,
and sleeping women.

When you open your eyes
we’ll walk, once more,
among the hours and their inventions.
We’ll walk among appearances
and bear witness to time and its conjugations.
Perhaps we’ll open the day’s doors.
And then we shall enter the unknown.



Thank you for reading the poem and thank you for spending the year with us. Here's to a hundred more. 

Sahand & Team

www.mezrab.nl

PS, one of my twins also wanted to write in this mail. So for the first time this year, or actually ever, here's a word she made up and wrote with her own fingers: Flamingokonijn